joshuahauberg: i wish i could have made it out to likemind but my internship inhibited me from going :’(

me: it was a good one. about 12 peeps. missed your presence and input. how’s the internship going?

me: wow, you’re getting used man. but your intentions are good. which counts

me: or you could wait till Planning/Strategy/Insights figures itself out as a discpline and position yourself for the future. Or you can get into an agency and risk being frustrated with how it is now. your path into planning will be unique.

me: no problem. explaining it to you helps me figure it all out for myself. and it’s changing.

The name of the box I typed this post in on the WordPress dashboard is labeled “content.” What is content? When people say “Content is King,” what do they mean?

Well for one, they probably work in social media. Strategists understand that in the social sphere that a brand’s target audience is opting-in now. To content. To content that interests them. They check that box and get it delivered to them in the most convenient way possible.

In 2010, that means mobile. While a mere 3% of the 276 million mobile consumers in the U.S. own iPhones, near 50% of them do have smartphones. It’s so convenient to have everything in your hand. Isn’t it? And I’m not just talking apps, I’m talking about texting, email, maybe some music, a video service, and of course, your phone. Bingo! Content channels up the wazoo via one simple device!!!

Another channel that I think will be popular, or at least isn’t done with it’s run yet, is Flickr. What a community!!! It’s bursting with content, waiting to be dissected, gobbled up, sponsored, or at least looked at. In the name of transparency, I have a Flickr stream. And I’m also responsible for writing blog posts for a client. When it comes to “add an image,” where do I look? Online… and believe you me, there aren’t enough FREE IMAGE sites online. Not sure why. If you mark them with a cookie, then you know where they go online after they leave your safety next. Use the organic path it takes to make new connections in the social world.

Social is all about re-purposing. Conversation isn’t about coming up with something NEW all the time. It’s about dealing with what you have and putting a new spin on it so people look at you (or hear you) and say, “Oh, hey, what’s up? I want to hear what they have to say. It sounds interesting.” Content should be alluring, just like a good conversation is.

And if there’s one reason social media exists in the marketing mix at all, it’s to start a conversation. Have a dialogue for crying out loud. Go on. Engage.

Friday was pay day – we all know what that’s like, right? Woohoo, I’ve got money in my account! Let’s go spend it (because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with money?)

So today, I was very lucky to have MLK Jr. Day off BTW (Thank you Omnicom), and I went shopping – at a mall. It was a officially a shopping spree – lots of good stuff, and on sale too! Colin Creek is relatively a “young people’s” mall – brands you would readily associate with 18-24 year olds are everywhere – Vans, Forever 21, Foot Locker, The Limited, American Eagle, Express, Charlotte Russe, Zumiez, PacSun, and some new ones – all catering to “the hipster” in everyone (fluorescent colored shoes anyone?) As the previous post states – I normally go for the “cool” clothes instead of the “fashionable, what’s in ‘for your age’”-Style. So this mall suits me.

My “great shopping experience” happened at my last store; I swear I only went in to look. And this girl in a short black sleeveless dress with pinstriped tights,a headband, and a unique walk sauntered up to me and said, what can I help you find? What a great question! Not, “can I help you find anything?” (less assertive) But what can I help YOU find? That’s right customer service, you’re here to help me! And this Miriam did, wonderfully.

Her engaging question immediately jogged my brain to register the fact that I needed some things (according to my friend Elijah), so I scouted the clothes in my immediate range to give her a visual to work with. The following ensued:

Me: “That black dress over there with the ruffles, what could I do to spice it up?”

Girl: (leading the way to a table with neat stacks of clothes) “Well, you might pair it with a sweater vest; you seem like the type of girl who might wear something a little different.”

Me: (thinking ‘awesome, this girl just gave me a great suggestion by assessing the situation and giving me relevant, customized information’) “I like it. Anything else?”

Girl: (points to a belt)

Me: (I love the belt on sight)

Girl: (leads me to the belt cube, picks out a couple belts, and takes the initiative to put it on me, like she was dressing a maniquin)

Me: (feeling like a rock star, I know this is going to look good. It feels like I have my own personal fashion consultant!)

Girl: (compliments me on how it looks)

Me: “Ok, I’ll take these three. Thank you.”

Now, I’m three great belts up in the world! I left with a smile on my face. This is what clothing shopping should be like. Awesome.

Her name was Miriam, at The Limited. She will have a good career in fashion or sales, whichever she’s into more. And now I’m going to call 1-866-325-9717 and give The Limited feedback  for a $10 off of $50 coupon.

Note to the future of retail: I’ll be honest, I think the compensation to reward “active consumer feedback” is too low – It should be $15-20 for a $20 dollar purchase.

Anyway, cheers to more shopping experiences like these!

Colin Creek Mall

Talulah Belle

Indigo 1745

Mockingbird Station

and about half of NorthPark suits me.

Why am I telling you this? I’m setting you up for my next post: A great shopping experience.

I was in Eugene, Oregon over Christmas. Eugene is a delightful town, it’s beautiful, clean, bike-friendly, a community rather than a city, houses the University of Oregon, Lane Community College, Northwest Christian college, 2 large rival high schools, and a bike path that stretches along the Willamette for at least 10-15 miles. Most buildings in town are about 5-8 stories high, and the shopping belongs to 5th Street and Coburg Village. I said above that it’s “delightful,” well it’s also darling.

It was in Eugene, that I picked up a card that had this awesome graphic on the front, simple BOLD copy to read, and tons of information on the back about what www.chooselocal.com is all about.

Choose Local is a community-minded initiative that was born and raised as an idea in Oregon (I love you). The card I picked up in the store says:

Sponsored by Coburg Station. Powered by MapClicks.com. Instant savings to shop, dine & unwind. Offers regularly updated. No points to collect. Helps the local economy. Valid for discounts at participating merchant members only. Merchants to determine their own discounts. AND, you can get the offers on your phone! at mobile.chooselocal.com

Sold. Awesome. Choose Local sounds like a program for me.

Let me know if you have Choose Local or a program like it in your area.

Super cool.

ps. if you’re a journalist or in public relations and you’d like to reference this post, let me know by sharing Kudos below. Cheers.

Attendees: Think about the idea ahead of time. Remember that there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm. Don’t be shy.

We brainstorm to harness our collective knowledge in a stimulating and efficient manner.

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.” ~ Edward De Bono

Collecta – is the latest real-time search engine to come into existence, and what space can their algorthims search through? MySpace! This means we can now get real-time data on MySpace users – what they’re sharing – their mood, photos, videos, blog posts, and status updates – all things that current social media services are trying to aggregate across a multitude of platforms, but that are hard to focus on a particular user group. So the second part of Collecta’s success will be to give us MySpace user demographics so that brands can allocate their social media budgets efficiently.

MySpace vs. Twitter – An interesting article from VentureBeat talks about the differences in status updates on MySpace vs. Twitter. It’s in these differences that may indicate who and what MySpace works for. So let’s take a look:

• Twitter users exchange more interesting links with each other – this possibly signifies that Twitter users are higher income, better educated, have more technology (iPhone, iPod, laptop, etc.) in their lives, probably are on at least 5 different social networks, and can hold good conversations because they’re opinionated. They are connectors – the people you want to reach early on the product adoption curve.
• MySpace users like to share more media – music, photos, videos – this could be huge support for their ambitious endeavor to become “a place for music.”
• The conversations via “updates” (and Tweets) seem to contain a lot more contextual fodder on Twitter than they do on Myspace, where the updates are much more simplistic and topic focuses. This could possibly tell us that people on MySpace aren’t that involved with other social media spaces, as much as they are with just MySpace, therefore their conversations aren’t that in-depth (are they even conversations?)

MySpace fans consider the site their OWN PERSONAL WEBSITE – This from a Helium user (no date included): “MySpace is in effect YOUR space – you can change the background, add music to your profile which plays whenever someone opens your page, tweak the layout, and so on. With Facebook, all you get is a standard plain-background profile, some stats about yourself and the applications you’ve added… and it is the same for everyone. No fanfare when guests come in to view your page, no grand introduction, no uniqueness (besides yourself as a real person)… nothing fancy. I find that on MySpace, you can show off your personality as much as you are willing to. It is like having a free personal website.”

And a couple more random notes:

• MySpace seems to be more for meeting people, where Facebook is for keeping in touch with people you may already know. (what do YOU think?)
• A friend of mine said that MySpace seems to be the SNS for more Hispanics and African-Americans…would YOU agree or disagree?
• If you Search Twitter for the word “MySpace” you’ll get a good share of Tweets that are in a language other than English, could this mean that MySpace could have its future in another country than the Facebook-dominated U.S.?

So in conclusion, it’s in-conclusive. Sorry! I will definitely be watching the space this year…so check back here or at my blog for more of the MySpace Case.

Happy New Year!